Public and Private Policy Change: Pension Reform in Four Countries

This article offers a comparative, qualitative analysis of the changing nature of—and relationship between—public and private old age pensions in the United States, Canada, Britain, and Japan. Stressing the impact of institutional legacies on policy change, the article explains why these countries have taken contrasting paths toward the restructuring of public and private pension policies. The study finds that the four countries fall into two distinct clusters. On the one hand are Canada and the United States, which have essentially witnessed policy drift toward a greater reliance on private savings. On the other hand are Britain and Japan, which have reshaped their pension systems largely through legislative revision. The last section explains the differences between and within these two country clusters. The article concludes that institutional forces explain the distinctive policy patterns between the two country clusters but that it is necessary to bring in other factors (i.e., demographic aging, union density, and the role of ideas) to account for differences within each of these clusters.     

Institutionalization and change in cultural policy: CONACULTA and cultural policy in Mexico (1988–2006)

This paper analyses the process of institutionalization of Mexican cultural policy and its evolution after the political alternation of 2000. It demonstrates that since its institutionalization with the creation of the National Council for Culture and Arts in 1988, the objectives, definitions and bureaucratic organization of the cultural policy have not known important changes in the period studied (1988–2006). The inertia observed in Mexican cultural policy can be explained by the institutional structures’ constraints inherited from the Partido de la Revolución Institucional (The Party of the Institutionalized Revolution) and by the actors’ resistance to change.     

胡适与蒋廷黻的政治主张之比较

胡适与蒋廷黻都是20世纪较有影响力的中国留美学者,都曾经十分关心现实的政治,也曾不同程度地参与政治活动,虽然同样受过西方教育,他们的政治主张却有很大不同.     

论《管子·禁藏》篇

本文对《管子·禁藏》篇错简复原作了三点补充论述。并认为全篇有一个主题思想,即提倡君主心中保持自我克制的思想;表现在治国理念上,又有三条思想线索,即以法治国、以时施政、以利劝民。最后指出《侈靡》篇与本篇思想上的联系最为密切,既有很大差别,又一脉相承。     

Understanding Policy Change Using a Critical Junctures Theory in Comparative Context: The Cases of Ireland and Sweden

Utilizing a new theory for examining critical junctures, we seek to better understand the nature of industrial policy change in Ireland during the 1950s and macroeconomic policy change in Sweden in the 1980s. Did these policy changes constitute critical junctures, or something less, and if so why? The theory consists of three elements—economic crisis, ideational change, and the nature of the policy change—that must be identified for us to be able to declare with some certainty if a policy change constitutes a critical juncture. Herein, we will be examining the roles of a variety of change agents including the media, central banks, and politicians. Our findings will help explain why Irish industrial policy was transformed in the late 1950s, while Swedish macroeconomic policy underwent only minor change in the early 1980s.     

Employers as Mediating Institutions for Public Policy: The Case of Commute Options Programs

Scholars have recently noted the role that employers can play as “mediating institutions” for public policy. Mediating institutions connect the private lives of individuals with public policy concerns by communicating societal norms to members and providing social contexts that encourage a commitment to these norms. Despite the potential importance of employers as mediating institutions for public policy, little scholarly attention has been devoted to employer mediation behavior. Accordingly, this study examines two research questions. What factors influence an employer's willingness to mediate policy problems? And how effective are employers as mediating institutions? The mediation behaviors of interest relate to employer efforts to mitigate traffic congestion and air quality problems by enabling employee “commute options,” which are alternatives to single‐occupancy vehicle commuting to work. Drawing on theories of organization behavior, the study hypothesizes that self‐interest, organizational control, and association membership will affect willingness to provide commute options. The study also hypothesizes that employers providing commute options will have lower percentages of employees that drive to work alone. Both sets of hypotheses are supported by statistical analyses of data from a cross‐sectional mail survey of metropolitan Atlanta organizations.     

Reconceptualizing Major Policy Change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework: A Discourse Network Analysis of German Pension Politics

How does major policy change come about? This article identifies and rectifies weaknesses in the conceptualization of innovative policy change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework. In a case study of policy belief change preceding an innovative reform in the German subsystem of old‐age security, important new aspects of major policy change are carved out. In particular, the analysis traces a transition from one single hegemonic advocacy coalition to another stable coalition, with a transition phase between the two equilibria. The transition phase is characterized (i) by a bipolarization of policy beliefs in the subsystem and (ii) by state actors with shifting coalition memberships due to policy learning across coalitions or due to executive turnover. Apparently, there are subsystems with specific characteristics (presumably redistributive rather than regulative subsystems) in which one hegemonic coalition is the default, or the “normal state.” In these subsystems, polarization and shifting coalition memberships seem to interact to produce coalition turnover and major policy change. The case study is based on discourse network analysis, a combination of qualitative content analysis and social network analysis, which provides an intertemporal measurement of advocacy coalition realignment at the level of policy beliefs in a subsystem.